


Handsome Stranger

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:04:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He was born in the summer of 1537, the bright La Noscean sun making the waves of the Rhotano glitter like crystals, the white-paved streets of the port settlement of Halfstone filled with life.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Headcanon-filled, self-indulgent Thancred backstory fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handsome Stranger

He was born in the summer of 1537, the bright La Noscean sun making the waves of the Rhotano glitter like crystals, the white-paved streets of the port settlement of Halfstone filled with life.

His father was a sailor, Highlander blood making Lambehrt tall and swarthy, dark-haired and bearded with piercing brown eyes that held more intelligence then one would expect out of a loud, brash man of the sea. He was clever and brave, knowing the whims of ocean like a favorite book and able to man his merchant ship, the  _Ocean’s Star_ , through even the roughest storms with nary a lost piece of cargo or man.

Many called Lambehrt blessed by Llymlaen Herself, and many took his wife as more proof of that. Maristela was beautiful, the object of many a sailor’s affections, her long hair the silver of the stars and her eyes the shining turquoise of the seas. Soft-spoken and wise, her soft features hid an iron will and a unquenchable spirit. She chose Lambehrt over all other suitors, and the two captained the  _Ocean’s Star_  — named after the woman herself — with skill and courage, never wishing to be apart.

Their son had his mother’s beauty and her silvery hair, and his father’s Highlander coloring and bright brown eyes. He had a smile that could charm even the hardest of seamen, nimble fingers, and a sharp mind. His parents raised him almost as much at sea as they did on land, the captains’ son, for all who knew the family, well likely to inherit the ship when he came of age.

But one cloudy day in 1543, that life was ripped from the boy by scales and fins. On a routine trip to Limsa Lominsa to pick up goods for the settlement, the _Ocean’s Star_  was attacked by sahagin, the beastmen and their drowned pirates swarming aboard the vessel, the churning waves soon stained red with the blood of men as the ship sank beneath the waves. The boy survived, clinging to a piece of driftwood and swimming the rest of the way to the Lominsan port until his lungs burned and his legs could move no more.

He hid from the foreseers that night, crouched behind some barrels and his hands over his mouth to quiet the sobs that shook his body, the rain that had begun to fall muffling the sound further. His family was gone, and he was alone in a city of pirates and scoundrels, a city he’d never explored and one far removed from the little settlement of Halfstone.

The years that followed were hard ones, the boy living among the sailors and on the streets, hiding from pirates who would take orphans into their crews whether they wanted it or not, making his own way as best that he could. He took what food he could from the Bismarck and Hawker’s Alley, nimble fingers put to use as they dipped into bags and coinpurses, glittering gil coins finding their way into the boy’s possession for when quickness or his charming smile could not earn him a bite to eat or what other goods he needed.

He avoided the docks as much as he could, due to both the threat of the pirates and because of the sea. The horror that took his family had taken from him his love of the ocean, replacing it with terror — he could hardly stand to be near the open sea, could not bear the thought of being aboard a boat again, or gods forbid in the water.

It was five years of this life before he was caught — not by the Yellowjackets or the pirates, but by a pair of men, masked and clothed in green. They took him to a hidden corner of Limsa, to their fraternity: a fraternity that hid in shadows, dealing in sharp blades and deft hands. Thieves and assassins, cheats and liars and killers all, but honorable and loyal, true of heart even with stained hands. They had recognized skill in the boy, in his agile explorations of the city, in his nimble fingers and charming smile. And so they brought him into the fold, opening a new chapter in the torn pages that made up his story.

The fraternity taught him many things. How to fight, how to dance upon the battlefield with cold steel in hands, twin daggers singing through the air as they found the vulnerable places in the enemies’ body, the cracks in the armor, weaving seamlessly through battles with the grace of a dancer and the agility of an acrobat. How to throw knives with deadly accuracy, strength enough behind them to sink to the hilt in warm flesh even with the most casual of tosses. How to prize information out of a man, be it with skillful blows and deftly-applied violence or with honeyed words and that charming smile. How to count cards and rig dice and win any gamble one could bet upon, in subtle ways not even the sharpest-eyed opponent could catch. How to be any man for any occasion, change one’s posture, pose, expression, and voice to be whatever was needed to coerce or convince or manipulate. How to move in the shadows, blending seamlessly into the background to strike when it was least expected, to move unseen into the most heavily-guarded of places. How to lie, how to cheat, how to steal and how to kill — all with the poise and elegance of a dancer in motion.

Unafraid now of the pirates, he took to the streets more openly as well, learning what he could from the unsavories of Limsa Lominsa, the people on the fringes of the populace, those who knew of the fraternity and those who did not — who all the same saw something in the boy with the bright brown eyes and the charming smile. The sailors and sea dogs and drunken old men past their prime, they taught him to sing, sea shanties and bawdy tunes and old folk songs, and smiled in nostalgic fondness when the boy’s clear, sweet lilt filled the air with the tunes of their memories. The women of the streets, those beauties that used their bodies as their trade for a warm body beside them for however short a time and coin in their pockets, they took a shine to the boy too, watching as he grew into a handsome young man — they taught him how to woo a lady, what to say and how to look at them, how to get whatever was needed from them with naught more then words and a touch, a smile and a look. They taught him other things too, one taking him to a back room and showing him how to pleasure a woman, how and where to kiss, to touch, and making him a man.

The next chapter of his life began unexpectedly on a cool autumn day in his seventeenth year, at first just like any other. There were whispers, though, of a strange man in the city, an elderly Elezen with a carved staff, who seemed to have appeared almost unseen. No one knew who he was or why he was in Limsa, and the boy meant to find out, his innate curiosity leading him to seek out the old man, watching him from afar before making a move, hand reaching for his coinpurse, hoping for some trinket or possession that would tell him of the stranger’s origins.

To his shock, the man caught him — catching the boy’s wrist in his hand with surprising quickness, his grip unexpectedly firm. Even more surprising was the man’s lack of action — the boy had expected to be dragged off to the Yellowjackets, punished in some way at the least. But the man did no such thing, simply shaking his head and smiling, scolding the boy kindly before letting him go free.

The boy was compelled by that act to follow him further, trailing him around the entire city as day gave way to evening and painted the surrounding sea in the colors of the sunset. Curiosity burned in him, but he could find no words to ask of the strange old man what he wanted to know.

Late that evening the old man seemed to find himself in a darker part of the city, soon — as the boy had expected — being accosted by a trio of drunken, belligerent Roegadyn. Hand flickering to his knives, he stepped out of the shadows unconsciously as if to aid the old man, but he was shown quickly that he wasn’t needed. Barely moving, the indulgent smile on his face never changing, the air crackled and burst with magics, sending the intoxicated sailors sprawling back onto the pavement several fulms back.

The boy’s hands dropped to his sides, shocked — that the old man had so much power…before he could return to his place in the shadows, the man turned to him, greeting him as if he had known of his presence the entire day — and he had, it turned out, as they spoke over the dinner the old man invited him to share (the boy had agreed, his curiosity too strong to deny).

The man was a scholar, from a far off city-state to the north, he discovered. The man was a part of a group of people, scholars and sages, that made it their mission to safeguard the peace and the people of Eorzea, watching over it best they could with such limited numbers and so large a land to protect. He was in Limsa visiting, as he did with the all the other city-states every so often. 

And he, too, saw potential in the boy. Not as a blade and a charming smile, but as one of his own, seeing through the roughness and darkness to the intelligence within, potential to be so much more than an assassin and a thief, walk a path of light, of knowledge and heroism instead of the shadowy path he was on — one that the old man knew would lead to naught but death, one that would destroy what was left of the goodness and kindness in the young man that had been near extinguished by life’s hardships and the unfortunate life he led.

Unsure at first, but somehow knowing that his choice here would change everything in a way that he could barely understand, he made his decision. He left Limsa Lominsa — and Vylbrand — behind the next morning, gripping the side of the boat white-knuckled as they crossed the sea to the unknown lands of Aldenard.

Sharlayan, his new home was called. City of scholars and learning, with the wise god Thaliak as its patron. The boy felt lost, out of place there. The scruffy, uncouth son of a sailor, the assassin and thief who knew not even how to read…he didn’t belong in this place of knowledge, among the wise and knowing. But he was nothing if not stubborn, and he would get by in his new home as best he could, whether he belonged or not.

And so he met the old man’s other students — a Hyuran girl with hair of gold that matched the sun of her personality, naive and strong-willed, seemingly oblivious to the world and yet with a will (and fists) as strong as the stone of the mountains that held the settlement she hailed from; a haughty Lalafell, a scholar born of scholars born of scholars with a talent for the darker bent of magic and a habit of speaking overmuch on whatever subject caught his fancy; and a Miqo’te girl with white hair, seemingly a still pond, yet cool attitude and impassive eyes hid a tongue sharp as a razor and a wit born of the streets that the boy recognized immediately, at odds with her skill in healing magics. There were others, but the four of them became close, the best students of them all.

The boy had been surprised at himself at first, his talents unexpected to say the least. He had considered it fact that he would be a terrible student, no head for letters or numbers or the studies of the world and its workings and whatever else there was to learn. He was wrong, though — his curiosity and his stubbornness, his drive to be better than he was and to succeed pushing him to excel at whatever was placed in front of him. He wanted,  _needed,_  to have his fears proven wrong — wanted so badly to be a part of this, to be a part of something more, to make his actions mean something, to protect and guard instead of kill. And he was. He was the brightest student, ahead of them all, and the old man’s praise was the greatest treasure of all, worth more to him than all the gil in Ul’dah.

He grew into a man in Sharlayan, and once he and his companions were all of age, the students were given the brand of the order upon their necks, and the boy (who was a boy no longer) became an Archon in the summer of his twenty-fifth year, not a moon after his nameday.

He was much changed from the standoffish, rude, jaded young assassin that had first set foot in the city-state six years earlier. He had painstakingly rid himself of his thick Lominsan accent, putting meticulous effort into smoothing his rough edges into someone he could be proud to be, tucking the darkness in himself away and shaping himself into a charming, friendly bard — words had become a fascination to him, and he found himself taking delight in stories and songs, putting his charisma and charm to a purpose that harmed none and pleased all. He was different now, he was  _better_  — as he saw it. No more was he the shadowy killer, he was simply a scholar and bard, protecting Eorzea with his charming smile and dry wit, not looking back at who he had been and almost become.

Almost as soon as they had become Archons, the four were sent to the city-states of the Alliance, for the Sharlayans and their new Circle, formed out of caution once negotiations with the looming Garlean Empire failed, had heard whispers of war — and so the new Archons were sent to investigate, to prove true or false the whispers, and learn all they could.

Refusing to set foot in the city of his dark past, and disliking the thought of being lost in a sea of unfamiliar green, the boy chose the desert, the jewel of the sands.

He arrived amid a parade of cheer and celebration, which quickly turned into a scene of sorrow as a little girl lost her father to a rampaging beast. Feeling sympathy and understanding at her plight, a newly-made orphan lost in a city she knew not, he tried his best to help her, pulling at the threads that connected her to those plotting war, following them — and the beautiful pale-haired songstress who he was quite infatuated with — and pulling the shroud off of a conspiracy…yet not in time to stop another death, his pretty songstress losing her love to the machinations of the greedy merchants who ruled, her heart never to heal.

 A full decade passed in Ul’dah, the boy remaining unchanged thanks to the magic of the Archons. He spent his time listening, watching, and learning all he could of the workings of the city-state, and when not doing that helping the bereft women he had befriended — taking care of the songstress and watching over the girl, who seemed to have a special talent that moved her to follow his footsteps, moved her to protect and help those in need.

Garlemald made their move in the year 1572, and their master’s — the old man’s — assistant, an Elezen with more knowledge of books than people and older than he looked by far, arrived in the city-states of the Alliance…soon followed by the old man himself, as the aether twisted and shook as beastmen across the land called forth their fell gods. Things happened quickly after that, too quickly, and Dalamud grew red and swollen overhead in seemingly the time it took to blink.

The Calamity changed everything, took something from almost everyone — taking their master, their leader from the Archons, leaving them sorrowed and aimless and leaving the boy without a lodestone, desperate to take up his mantle and prove to a man no longer alive that he would be strong and right the wrongs that had sundered the land. The girl, his dear friend with her special talents, who was also reeling from the apparent loss of the songstress, offered them a helping hand, melding her Path with their Circle and creating the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, determined to carry on their work, to stop the primals and to bring peace once more to Eorzea.

Five more years went by after that, the twin grandchildren of their leader arriving unannounced, determined to carry on their grandsire’s work as well, wanting to be involved in his legacy. Meanwhile, the Archons continued their work as watchers, studying the rebuilding Alliance even as the future showed no signs of brightening, made even darker for him by the loss of his first home, Halfstone washed away by the Lord of the Whorl, the remains blasted and twisted by the sea into a spawning ground for the sahagin — who earned from the boy a deep, black hatred that he knew would come to no good, yet still festered in his darkness.

But as the saying goes — it is always the darkest before a dawn, and after being possessed, broken, and nearly dying, the boy was saved, and together with his dear friends, they were able to see their beloved homeland to the dawning of a new age.

From the son of sailors to a hero and scion, it seems almost an unbelievable journey. Yet it is where one boy’s life led him, and despite hardships and suffering, he regrets not a moment of it, and never will. So he will keep on moving forward, wearing that charming smile, and stride forward with his companions further into the seventh dawn.


End file.
